urbanMSP

It doesn't seem like there's much room to expand VF beyond where it already is, with the highway to the south and the river to the north, unless they repurpose some of the parking lot or something.

I wish we had a larger, more modern amusement park, but I don't see us ever getting one.

Feels like a lot of this nonsense is because they really want everyone to just sign up for PreCheck or Global Entry.

I'm glad it's gone. the heavy stream of out-of-towners that frequent the restaurants in that area deserve something that demonstrates the strength of our food scene. I hope Newsroom is next. I haven't dined there in a long time, and it was always for business functions where I wasn't the one paying...

It could also just be that Rojo is overpriced and of middling quality. You can get much better Mexican food elsewhere for a lot less.

How dare you make me look up the correct usage of “sunk costs”. I’m a planner, not an economist

I'd say you're both right -- rationally, people shouldn't consider the sunk costs, but people aren't always rational.

For now. I think someone else will try to develop it at some point, though maybe as a smaller project.

What an absolutely terrible name. "Lifetime Fitness" and "Lifetime Athletic" make sense - being fit for a Lifetime is a desirable attribute. But "Lifetime Work "? Who really wants a lifetime filled with work? LOL, yeah, it's so awful you wonder how it got as far as it ...

This is less than 4 miles from Eagan's plethora of endless shopping options and a little over 4 miles to South Roberts shopping in West Saint Paul. I think the pioneers in Zigiland Living will manage fine. Sure it's not connected well via transit - but hopefully with additional density, that will c...

I just think it's a weird place to build apartments. It would be convenient for someone who worked at Ecolab, Prime, or one of the other companies nearby, but there's nothing else in the area for shopping and services, other than the new Costco soon and a few restaurants at 55 and Dodd.

I heard they also nabbed Orvis, Crabtree & Evelyn, County Seat and FAO Schwarz. Orvis seems to be doing alright, and FAO Schwarz did open a new store in NYC last year, so who knows. Plus C&E is expanding in Asia and Australia, so I wouldn't be surprised to see new stores here eventually. Bu...

They won't take a forward-thinking approach because they don't need to from their POV. Mayo does what's good for Mayo, not the city/region as a whole. If their interests happen to align with good urbanism and development on a project, it's because there's something in it for them too.

Maybe they should have leased space to MoviePass too while they were at it.

The main obstacle so far has been political opposition, and there's not much the Mayo can do about that. The people who are opposed to it don't give a rip about what the Mayo wants.

I got the impression it was just a poorly run outfit. For example, they had a sponsorship agreement with the Vikings where the latter alleged that Smaaash reneged on some payments and it ended up going to court. It seemed like the kind of place where people might go there once to try things out, but...

But, I think everyone realized that just because there's enough commercial space overall, that doesn't mean it will pair for *these* tenants' specific needs. And there was a lot of concern about how to serve small businesses in need of affordable space. Yeah, that's the crux of it, and it's good to...

Cities need affordable commercial space too; it's what helps places like Lyn65 get off the ground. I wouldn't call that commercial strip blighted necessarily, as it seems mostly occupied. It's hard to complain about more housing, but OTOH part of the reason people like to live in dense areas is to h...

I feel like they would get a lot of walk-up business from residents. People underestimate the number of children in the area.

Hmm...maybe a Five Below, then?

If the property owners would stop thinking of themselves as a retail destination and more of a neighborhood retail hub, we'd see a shift toward more vibrancy and less vacancy. But that would involve undoing a generation of the traditional wisdom that Uptown is this huge important hip location that ...

The Millennials have to wait behind the Gen-Xers, aka the powers behind the throne at a lot of these places. :) I'm sure we will still see more companies locate downtown over time, but my gut feeling is that most of the major ones that would, have done so by now or are in the process of it. I though...

Those making the 80-mile commute generally aren't doing it by choice. Rochester is still a one-trick pony and is virtually a company town. If you're not a medical professional and your spouse is (or vice-versa), the commutes are going to happen. With that said, even slow rail to the SPUD would be a...